Monday, August 5, 2013

Going down the internet rabbit hole: The 1975

The most dangerous part of the internet? Other than the roving
gangs of identity thieves, computer-destroying viruses, scheming Nigerian
princes and eBay?

The wide range of different and
seemingly endless rabbit holes you can easily find yourself stumbling down. Maybe
for hours, maybe for forever.

For example, say you read an
article about the Los Angeles Kings hockey team. That gets you thinking about
former Flyer Jeff Carter. So you head over to Wikipedia to look at Carter’s
career stats. While there, you notice Carter was drafted in 2003 with the 11th
overall pick. Pretty good player for not being a top ten pick, you think to
yourself. So you look up the results of the 2003 draft to see who went before
Carter that year. You find out the 2003 draft is widely regarded as one of the
two best draft years in the NHL’s history. Before you know it, an hour’s passed
and you’re reading round by round through every player selected in 2003, just
to amaze yourself with how deep it actually was.

Recently, I went spiraling down a
rabbit hole so deep that it carried me beyond the gates of the internet and
back into the real world. So yeah, what’s up Donnie Darko? Can your rabbit
costume-wearing psycho-babble match that?

I didn’t think so.

Anyway, so a friend of a friend
posted a link on Facebook to a video of Jimmy Eat World performing a cover of
Taylor Swift’s “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” on “Conan.”

Being a big Jimmy Eat World fan and
possibly an even bigger Taylor Swift fan, I had to watch. So I clicked on the
link and enjoyed it. Not great, but certainly a serviceable cover.

Under the video was a collection of
related links. I usually pay about as much attention to these as I did to any
Spanish class I ever took. Which is to say somewhere near the level of: Hmm …
yeah that’s interesting … Butterfly! Wow look at it go!

However, one of these related links
caught my eye. I’d never heard of the artist, but the song was called “Chocolate.”

Now, having just watched a cover, I
assumed this was another one, perhaps of Snow Patrol’s song “Chocolate,” a song
which I’ve loved for many years.

Intrigued by the prospect of
someone putting their own spin on such a classic, I put on my swim cap,
high-tech goggles and space suit and dove in.

Turns out, it wasn’t a cover at
all, but an original song that also happened to be called “Chocolate,” this one
by The 1975.

My first thought was to head
elsewhere, but the heavily-accented, rapid fire, mostly mumbled vocals drew me
in. I moved my mouse away from the “X” on the screen and with that my fate was
sealed.

I came dangerously close to wearing
out that digital video that day. Soon I worked my way through as much of The 1975’s catalog as was available online.

This process continued through the
rest of the workweek, through a weekend and into a new week.

It was during one of these marathon
sessions that I noticed the band was coming to my area to play a show, one that
started at the ghastly hour of 10:30 at night. I know! They make a 10:30 at
night now. Amazing.

The allure was too strong despite
the dreadful time slot. Somewhere in the span of about a week, I went from
having no knowledge of this band, to being a big enough fan to go see them live.

Listen to The 1975 if you’ve got a
free second. “Chocolate,” “Robbers,” “Ghosts,” “Me.” Those are just some of the
highlights. They’re a synthy, moody alt-rock band from the U.K. so how could
they not be cool?